.... Mr. Bildad Gorcas, whose death has cast a wet blanket of gloom
over our community, was a man comparatively unknown, but his life
furnishes an instructive lesson to fast livers. Mr. Gorcas never in his
life tasted ardent spirits, ate spiced meats, or sat up later than nine
o’clock in the evening. He rose, summer and winter, at two A. M., and
passed an hour and three quarters immersed in ice water. For the last
twenty years he has walked fifteen miles daily before breakfast, and
then gone without breakfast. During his waking hours he was never a
moment idle; when not hard at work he was trying to think. Up to the
time of his death, which occurred last Sunday, he had never spoken to a
doctor, never had occasion to curse a dentist, had a luxurious growth
of variegated hair, and there was not a wrinkle upon any part of his
body. If he had not been cut off by falling across a circular saw at
the early age of thirty-two, there is no telling how long he might have
weathered it through.
A life like his is so bright and shining an example that we are almost
sorry he died.
.... During the week just rolled into eternity, our city has been
plunged into the deepest grief. He who doeth all things well, though to
our weak human understanding His acts may sometimes seen to savour of
injustice, has seen fit to remove from amongst us one whose genius and
blameless life had endeared him to friend and foe alike.
In saying that Mr. Jowler was a dog of preeminent abilities and
exceptional virtues, we but faintly echo the verdict of a bereaved
Universe. Endowed with a gigantic intellect and a warm heart, modest in
his demeanour genial in his intercourse with friends and acquaintances,
and forbearing towards strangers (with whom he ever maintained the most
cordial relations, unmarred by the gross familiarity—too common among
dogs of inferior breeds), inoffensive in his daily walk and
conversation, the deceased was universally respected and his loss will
be even more generally deplored.
It would be a work of supererogation to give a _résumé_ of the public
career of one so well known—one whose name has become a household word.
In private life his character was equally estimable. He had ever a wag
of encouragement for the young, the ill-favoured, the belaboured, and
the mangy. Though his gentle spirit has passed away, he has left with
us the record of his virtues as a shining example for all puppies; and
the writer is pleased to admit that so far as in him lay he has himself
endeavoured to profit by it.
PAGANS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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